Pratt Institute Archives

Finding aids for processed archival collections are available online. Browse collections or search finding aids using the search bar above.

The majority of the Archives is comprised of institutional records created by Pratt's various schools, departments, and internal agencies, and offices. These include annual, budget and accreditation reports, strategic and campus plans, official memos, correspondence, news clipping scrapbooks, and publicity materials. The institutional records are not complete, and some departments are more strongly represented than others.

We do not maintain the official student records. Researchers interested in transcripts should contact the Office of the Registrar. 

Collections of note:

• Records of the Library
• Records of the School of Art and Design
• Records of the President's Office
• Buildings and Grounds Collection
  • Current CAD files and drawings of campus buildings are available to Pratt students, faculty, and staff with ID. Access to these is facilitated by the library's reference staff; visit the reference desk on the first floor of the library, email libref@pratt.edu, or call 718-636-3704 for more information. 
  • Digitized building plans are available to the Pratt community in our Campus Buildings Collection on Artstor. 

We also hold collections and papers that were created by persons or organizations associated with Pratt, including faculty, alumni, and the Pratt family. Materials include business and personal correspondence, memorabilia, diaries, sketches and drawings, notes and publications, sample books and other student work, textiles, and artifacts. 

Sample collections:

• Alice E. Fitts Papers
• Jessie Griffith Stone Papers
• New York School of Applied Design for Women Collection

While we do have a collection of our founder Charles Pratt's personal and Institute-related papers, as well as collections for some of his descendants, we are not the official repository for the Pratt family. For information concerning our Pratt family holdings, please email us at archives.library@pratt.edu.

We have a rich collection of photographs and other images, including photographic negatives and slides. The earliest photos date from the late 1880s, and the bulk dates range from the late nineteenth century through the mid-1970s. 

Many of the photographs have been processed and are arranged by subject. A full listing of the subject categories is available in the Guide to the Photograph Collection.

Some of our images have been digitized and are available on Artstor in the Archives Image Collection and the Archives Negatives Collection. These collections represent a small portion of our image holdings and will continue to expand over time as the digitization process continues. 

We maintain vertical files of folders on subjects, events, and individuals for which we do not have enough materials to warrant a separate collection. A listing of these folders is included in the Guide to the Vertical Files Collection.

The Archives collects Institute, student, and departmental publications. Some publications can be found in the collections of the departments that created them and are described in the collections' finding aids.

Institute and student publications include:

• The Prattler (the student newspaper)
• Prattonia (the yearbook)
• Prattfolio (the alumni magazine)
• Course catalogs

Please email us at archives.library@pratt.edu for information on specific publication titles and issues.